In Hindsight
by October Revolution
Summary: The RED team is up to its usual antics, but Spy is up to something that could be the downfall of all of them.
1. Chapter 1: Scout

**In Hindsight…**

_A TF2 Fanfic_

**Chapter 1: Scout**

_Crack! _ The butt of the shotgun slammed into Scout's shoulder painfully, but still a crooked grin spread across his face. Recoil hurt, but the blast had finished off the RED Demoman guarding the capture point. With a wordless howl of triumph, he dashed forward to stand on the point. He grinned insanely as the BLU Heavy ran past, followed by the Medic. They'd hold off the advancing REDs, at least for a while. The capture was nearly finished. Suddenly, a flicker of motion caught Scout's attention. His eyes widened. "Oh, sh—" he started, but never got to finish.

"Headshot." the RED Sniper said, reloading with a smirk.

…...

In the end, the RED team was victorious. Now they all sat eating a celebratory dinner—Engineer's attempt at fried chicken. It wouldn't be too bad, but the breading was extremely spicy. Scout, as a prank, had dumped a bunch of powdered cayenne pepper in the mix. The joke seemed to be on him now, though; Scout was coughing and his eyes watered.

"Whatcha cryin' about?" Engineer teased, tapping Scout's shoulder. "Too spicy?"

"No." Scout said defensively, coughing a bit more. "Somethin'… in my throat…" The rest of the team was trying not to laugh outright, but a few hid giggles behind napkins or hands. Engie leaned forward, smiling.

"Yer sure?" he asked. Scout stood hurriedly, red-faced, and walked swiftly out of the room. "Aww." Engineer said. Medic frowned.

"You shouldn't tease him so." Medic said gently. "He's seemed a bit on-edge lately." Soldier shrugged, about to say something, but Pyro started tapping a fork against a glass mirthfully. Sniper glanced over quizzically, watching in fascination as the noise grew louder and louder until, suddenly, the glass shattered. Pyro clapped its hands happily.

"Resonant frequency!" Engineer shouted, standing and jogging off. Heavy shrugged, eating more chicken. He was the only one that seemed unfazed by the spice. Eventually, the team members excused themselves and left until only Spy remained. He lit a cigarette and stared at his food, which he hadn't touched. Silently he picked up his plate and left, glancing around furtively as he went.

….

Scout had gone up to his room, flopped down on the bed, and turned on the radio, just in time to catch the end of a baseball game. The white noise of the crowd filled his ears, and he could almost imagine being there in the stands—no, being on the _field._ His wishful thinking was interrupted, though, by a knock on the door.

"Scout? You in there?" Engineer asked quietly.

"Get outta here, Dell. I don't wanna talk." Scout replied irritably.

"I just wanted to apologize. Shouldn't have made fun of you like that, 'specially not in front of everyone. It was just friendly teasing, you now." Engineer said.

"I said I don't wanna talk!" Scout shouted. "Wish you'd all stop treatin' me like a child. I may be the youngest, but I ain't no child!" He turned up the radio, folding his arms. Honestly, he was feeling homesick, and he was really tired of dying. Engineer shrugged and left. He believed in choosing his battles, and this one wasn't worth the fighting. Scout hadn't been himself lately, and he didn't want to push him.

As he walked, he noticed Spy come in from outside, holding an empty plate and wearing a weary frown. It was certainly odd behavior, but the spook was far from normal, and Engineer only shrugged and walked back to his workshop.


	2. Chapter 2: Pyro

**In Hindsight…**

_A TF2 Fanfic_

**Chapter 2: Pyro**

The world was full of pastels and bright streams of color that hung from the sky and traced spirals and lines on the ground. Pyro existed in a cocoon of bliss, where everything was good and bright. Sometimes, though, it had flickers of memories from the dark times, especially when it waited in the cozy limbo of Respawn. They were short bursts of recollection—usually riots of fluid red and orange color, backed by noises of crackling and the occasional chilling sound of the screams of a human in unbearable agony. Pyro would awaken, unsettled, and then become inspired to bring even more happiness to its little blue friends.

Its teammates were afraid of it, though. Pyro couldn't understand why its red friends often hid or laughed nervously when it came near to them. The only time that the Pyro remembered being _sad _was when it first came to stay at Mann Co. No one would stay in the same room as it, and for the first few weeks it only ever caught fleeting glimpses of its teammates. Loneliness started creeping into the rainbow world, and some things started to grow dark around the edges.

One day, though, everything changed. The Medic, smiling warily, was the first to approach Pyro, who was overjoyed. It embraced the Medic and took him by the hand, producing an origami paper flower and presenting it happily to the German, who took it and quickly left.

Behind the mask, Pyro had smiled.

…...

The hunger was starting to get to the Spy, and oftentimes he felt himself weak and lethargic. He hated it, but he could not eat what was given to him. Every night, he'd take his plate and step out into the cool evening air. Soon he'd return with an empty plate. He only hoped that his efforts would be enough.


	3. Chapter 3: Heavy and Demo

**In Hindsight…**

_A TF2 Fanfic_

**Chapter 3: Demo and Heavy**

Sometimes, on Fridays, the two would sit in the kitchen and drink. Heavy would pull out two stools and Demo would pour the liquor—whiskey for the Scotsman and Heavy's own imported Russian vodka. The first few rounds would pass in silence, but Demoman would invariably break the silence with a tearful remark, usually about his missing eye. Heavy would shrug and down more vodka. And so they'd pass the evening, with Demo ranting and Heavy listening, silent but sympathetic. That Friday, though, was different.

"I've been thinking of home." The Russian rumbled, his voice unusually quiet. Demoman looked at him in surprise.

"Have ye?" Demo asked. Heavy nodded.

"I lived outside _Moskva_." He paused, frowning. "Moscow." This was proceeded by a silence and the pouring of more alcohol. "My father was killed when I was sixteen. Political reasond. That left me, and younger brother Alexei. Younger brother ran away to join Cossacks. Went to Leningrad. Never came home."

"I'm sorry." Demoman mumbled, momentarily forgetting his whiskey and listening to Heavy's story. By now Heavy had ceased to pour the vodka into glasses and was now drinking straight from the bottle.

"After a while, it was just me and leetle sister Anya. Mother died of sickness. I was drafted into Russian army in 1944. Promised her I'd come back for her." Heavy paused again, taking a long drink. "I came back and found her, collapsed on floor. She was about to die, but she hung on to see me again. 'Big brother…' she said. I remember her eyes. They…" Heavy looked up, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "She said, 'I knew you'd come back.' And then…" He shrugged, draining the bottle. "Death visits every man. I have had my own hardships."

Demo stood and left the room. To see Heavy, the strong, emotionless, solid-as-a-rock member of the team so shaken… It terrified him.

…...

The cloaked Spy in the corner of the room wiped away a tear. He thought of the reason of his slow starvation and shivered with dread. He would not have an Anya of his own, nor would he be one.


	4. Chapter 4: Engineer and Soldier

**In Hindsight…**

_A TF2 Fanfic_

**Chapter 3: Soldier and Engineer**

"I still don't understand how you can just sit inside all day." Soldier grumbled, fidgeting in his chair. He was complaining, yes, but he was interested in what the Engineer did. Besides, the sentry guns blew stuff up. Anything that causes explosions was good in Soldier's book. At this point, he was staring warily at a sentry gun that Engineer was repairing. Though the Texan reassured him that there was almost no probability of friendly fire, the "almost" scared Soldier. Besides, the gun kept pointing at him, and he scowled at it, making mean faces as if it would intimidate the thing. "What are you looking at, huh?"

"Relax. I could disable the camera, if it makes you feel any better." Engineer replied, gritting his teeth and turning a wrench hard. The mount swiveled and pointed in a different direction, and Soldier sighed with relief. Engineer stood. "It's time to test it. You may want to stand back… Also, cover your ears." Soldier's self-preservation instinct was strong enough to send him scuttling backwards, but his hands weren't over his ears fast enough. Engineer had hit a button on a radio transmitter, and a light came on atop of the sentry gun. It swiveled swiftly, pointing at a dummy in a blue hat—then aiming instead at the pane of glass next to it. It emitted a high-pitched, extremely painful tone.

"GAH! Maggots!" Soldier shouted, clapping his hands over his ears and grimacing. The glass shattered, sending shards in every direction. The noise stopped and Soldier, red-faced, stood at attention once more.

"It worked!" crowed Engineer, beaming. He patted the sentry gun lovingly, which whirred and sounded almost like a purring cat. Soldier narrowed his eyes. He had a theory that these sentries were all sentient and Engineer was just trying to fool them all into thinking that they were machines. The little gun looked around—as if it was curious, Soldier thought. Shivering, he left.

A few hours passed, but eventually the weapon was perfected. Engineer sighed happily, sitting down to take a rest, but Spy appeared in the doorway. He strolled over lazily.

"Engineer… 'Ave you ever built a coffin?" Spy asked quietly. Engineer looked up in surprised.

"Can't say that I have." He answered carefully. "We've always had respawn to catch us, an' I mostly work with metal anyways." Spy nodded, starting to walk away.

"There may be a need for one." Spy said ominously, cloaking and leaving.

….

In a downstairs hallway near the Respawn room, he uncloaked. Normally, this was accompanied by a slight amount of dizziness, but today it was overpowering. With a confused cry, the Frenchman fell to his knees. Medic poked his head out of a nearby doorway, processed what he was seeing, then rushed over.

"Something wrong?" Medic asked. Spy shook his head, the dizziness subsiding as fast as it had appeared. He stood smoothly, looking nonchalant as always. He dusted off his suit.

"_Non, mon ami_." Spy said, walking off. "I just tried to uncloak on one foot." Medic nodded, turning away reluctantly. Somewhere in his mind, he had noticed that the usually skinny man was now bordering on emaciated. Consciously, though, Medic only noticed the weariness in the spook's voice.


	5. Chapter 5: Sniper

**In Hindsight…**

_A TF2 Fanfic_

**Chapter 5: Sniper**

Sniper saw everything.

It was a common misconception that he'd only see what was in his scope at the time. In the heat of a battle, that'd be absolutely correct. But Sniper was naturally observant, and he tended to favor high places, and so he saw exactly what was going on with everything. He'd seen Engineer's successful sonic gun test and laughed at Soldier's reaction. He'd seen Demo leave the bar and go stand, shivering, in the cool air, and seen the tears that the increasingly on-edge REDs held back—as well as the ones they didn't. He'd seen everything, really, but he was far from understanding everything. The lack of comprehension was usually fine, but now he needed to know. Spy kept sneaking out after dinner, sitting by the fence and talking to a hole in the ground. Or so it seemed.

Sniper waited until he saw Spy walking out after dinner, and then caught his arm. Spy looked stricken and gaunt, and he turned his dark eyes on the Australian imploringly.

"Let me go." Spy said quietly. He glanced at the plate of food.

"Eat." Sniper insisted, meeting the spook's stare.

"Not hungry." Spy whispered, trying to get his arm free. It had been a week and a half since he'd eaten last, and it was obvious that he was lying.

"Liar." Sniper replied, jabbing a finger at Spy's chest. "You haven't eaten in a long time. You'll starve to death. Is that what you want?"

"Better me than—" Spy burst out, then clamped his mouth shut. He swallowed hard.

"Than who?" Sniper smiled triumphantly. "You have a pet?" Spy clenched his jaw, and Sniper frowned. There was something wrong. The spook moved so fast that he couldn't react—white-hot pain exploded trough his head as Spy hit him hard in the temple.

…...

The floor was cold against Sniper's cheek, and he sat up sleepily.

"You're awake." A detached voice said from a desk in the corner of the room. Medic was sitting there, filling out paperwork and glancing around, surveying the white sheets with his ice-blue eyes. "You're feeling okay?" But Sniper was already gone, fighting back waves and torrents of dizziness and stumbling through the halls looking for Spy. Heavy stopped, looking gently puzzled.

"Sniper?" he rumbled, but the Australian did not stop. He just kept running, wandering, trying to find Spy. He didn't know why it was so important—but it was. Oh, something here was imperative, but somehow elusive as well. And there was a terrible sense of urgency as well. A feeling of importance, in a matter of life or death.


	6. Chapter 6: Medic

**In Hindsight…**

_A TF2 Fanfic_

**Chapter 6: Medic**

Medic's words hung in the air for too long, and he looked up to see where Sniper had gone. There was just an empty cot there now. Ahh, well. People only seemed to favor his company if he was healing them. Sometimes one of them would stick around, but not often. He'd actually banned Pyro from his office after an instance where the childlike _thing_ had made a sheaf of printer paper into a fleet of origami boats, complete with tiny people and even a kraken. The ships were in Pyro's room now. Medic chuckled to himself when he thought of it, filling out the forms diligently.

The German was very in-tune to the emotions and behaviors of his team, and he suddenly had a bit of a revelation. What was happening to them? They were all slowly falling apart, all getting to be edgy and nervous and uncomfortable, all of them turning mean even towards each other. Was it homesickness? Was the constant cycle of killing and dying, death and rebirth, war and peace, and friendship and enmity getting to them? Were the RED team slowly going mad from the stresses of their everyday lives? Worse—and Medic shuddered to think of this—was he himself beginning the slow descent into madness? Only time would tell. And being trapped in the hell that was Mann Co., time was the one certainty—they had a lot of it. The rest of their lives, and beyond, in fact.

Suddenly, Medic's thoughts were interrupted by a noise he hoped he would never have to hear. It was the sound of the deepest pain in the human soul bubbling up, distilled, and escaping in a gust of wind. It was the keening wail of one who is truly lost, and will never be found again. It was the sound of grief and madness and every emotion that humans should never experience. Medic stood, and he felt his blood turn to ice, for he knew what that sound meant. He himself had made that sound once, when his wife had died in his arms. It was the sound of grief; pure, raw, soul-wrenching pain—the sound that meant that someone had died. And they were_ not_ coming back.


	7. Chapter 7: Spy

**In Hindsight…**

_A TF2 Fanfic_

**Chapter 7: Spy**

There was something wrong today. Normally his footsteps were greeted by a hopeful sound, or a scared whimper. Today, though, all was silent. As he rounded the corner, Spy noticed two things. One, there was a piece of paper tacked to the ground next to the grave. Two, there were spatters of scarlet on the ground, like some macabre Jackson Pollock painting. But these wild patches of angry red were not paint—they were fresh blood. Spy broke into a sprint, stopping at the edge of the hole in the ground and looking down. What he saw there made his blood run cold.

The girl was there, lying in her bed of loamy earth as always. But her eyes were open halfway, her lips were parted, her hands lay coiled into fists—and there was a bullet hole through her temple. Spy sank numbly to his knees. _Not her. Oh, please not her._ He threw his head back, then, unable to look at the body of the child any more, and voiced all his sorrows in a chilling, keening wail.

…...

Somewhere far away, the Administrator smiled as the faint sounds of a soul in agony reached her ears. The assassin had done his job. The girl had been killed. And now the Spy would never fall out of line again. Everything was going according to plan— just like it always did.

….

Medic was at the scene first, as usual. He saw the Spy at the border of the map, one hand clenched around the wrought-iron fence and the other hand over his face. Medic noted that the hole in the ground looked decidedly like a grave, human-shaped and deep so that it would not be disturbed. He knelt beside the Frenchman, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"_Herr_ Spy?" he asked gently. The Frenchman did not move, only sat as though he was a weeping statue, carved and stony and frozen in eternal sorrow. Medic peered over the edge at the body in the grave and his eyes widened. Had Spy been twelve years old and female, that was what he would have looked like. Yes, the dead child was certainly family, and Medic, remembering his own losses, felt deep sympathy for the spook. "Who was she?" he murmured. Spy did not reply for a long while, and the other REDs started to gather around, whispering words of sympathy and sadness.

"She was my niece." Spy said, his voice raw and hoarse from crying. "But I raised her. She's the only family I have left." He raised his head, not even bothering to try to dry his eyes. Swallowing hard, he picked up the paper on the ground, reading it silently before letting it fall to the ground. Medic picked it up.

_Spy,_

_This is a reminder: Pets are not allowed._

_ Sincerely,_

_ The Administrator_

Medic shivered and glanced over at Spy, noticing for the first time how painfully thin he was. He must have been giving all his food to the girl to keep her alive, and now she had been struck down by the Administrator. Rage welled up inside the German and he stood, removing his hand from Spy's shoulder.

"Her death will not be in vain, my friend." Medic vowed. He turned to the other team members—tired, homesick, slowly losing their minds and everything they loved. And it was all the fault of the Administrator. This was the last straw, and as he looked around at the faces of his teammates, he saw a silent agreement form. They would be free, or die trying. Soon they all left, leaving Spy alone at the graveside.

The sun continued its slow progression across the sky and now the sky was lit with crimson, red as blood. Spy stood, dusting off his suit and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

"I'm so sorry, Heather." He murmured, taking a handful of dusty earth and scattering it into the grave. "In hindsight, I ought to have made you leave this place. Then again…" He paused, turning away. "Everything is clearer in hindsight."


End file.
